azazel

by our dancing days

"You aren't a heavenly angel (far from it, love) and yet when you jump from the rooftops, you still expect your wings to save you." Remus, Sirius and believing in fairytales. / freeverse.

Title: Azazel

Summary: "You aren't a heavenly angel (far from it, love) and yet when you jump from the rooftops, you still expect your wings to save you." Remus, Sirius and believing in fairytales. / freeverse.

Prompts: For Jazzy's Freeverse Competition - ambidextrous, wishful, shell, crazed.

Notes: Well, it started off as this ambiguous, hard-hitting, angsty war freeverse from a twisted Sirius, and then it just warped into this happy... fluffy... thing by the last stanza. I don't know if I'm sorry yet; but I hope you enjoy! (Also, the title is relevant in my head. Honest.)

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A · za · zel, noun: From the Bible; an evil spirit in the wilderness to whom a scapegoat was sent on the Day of Atonement.

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{If only you'd said yes,

but-}

You know what?

Sometimes we don't get the happy ending.

Sometimes,

fucking sometimes,

you have to stand up and face your demons,

and they laugh in your face,

because who are you?

You're a child.

A manifestation of broken pride

and a war that's gone on too long.

You're not a soldier;

not a hero.

You won't be written into the history books

as anything more than a statistic.

You're a number in a sea of names and dates,

and -

you didn't make it out alive.

Come on, little boy;

throw on your helmet and laugh into the wind.

It's only a matter of time

before a shell hits you ,dear -

(and breaks yours)

No Man's Land has never looked so empty.

Isn't war glorious, love? Isn't it beautiful?

All those poems, those stories, dedicated to the acts of heroes.

Surely they can't be wrong?

Climb on top the body bags, and you can

overlook the battle.

It's not so beautiful when it's a flash of green and a splatter of red;

because men die, dear.

Great men.

Good men.

Maybe even heroes.

And the point of the matter is, being a hero doesn't make you better.

It doesn't mean you'll live any longer.

{So I just wanted to say-}

.

{Don't you kind of wish-}

Never growing up was never an option.

When you grow up,

you learn

that people don't come from fairytales,

and they sure as hell don't start them.

In fairytales,

the big bad wolf is the villain,

so what does that make you?

You can't be a hero,

an angel,

with those claws and those crazed eyes that bleed through

all twenty eight days of the month.

You may not have fur,

or walk on all fours,

but you could rip them apart if you tried.

Is that what you're worried about?

Playing the villain?

As if there was any other role, child.

Life lives to fuck us up, boy, didn't you know?

Because guess what, love;

I loved you back.

Isn't that wonderful?

Isn't that a fairytale, Bible-loving ending?

Not only did you find "true fucking love"

but it was reciprocated -

I proposed to you,

when it turned 11:11,

and you rolled over and glared at me.

Because who was I to dictate our fairytale?

After all,

dear,

you're the one who started it all -

first shag,

first kiss, first date

(because we never do things in order, do we?) -

and I was always just pulled along for the ride.

Little red riding hood, after all.

{Red never did suit me, darling,

but you-}

.

{If I could fly, I would-}

Save you;

always been an interesting notion, right, dear?

You'll learn eventually,

that sometimes,

Lucifer doesn't rise up from hell,

tell them his story,

get a pat on the back and a cookie.

Sometimes, he isn't let back in those fucking pearly gates

with open arms and open smiles.

Sometimes they kick him,

like a dog,

back underground,

and chain him there, with steel and cutting words.

Sometimes you don't escape purgatory.

You aren't a heavenly angel

(far from it, love)

and yet when you jump from the rooftops,

you still expect your wings

to save you.

You stare at the empty space between

your shoulder blades,

and you wait for them to appear -

but there are no such thing as fallen angels.

(They're all still falling.)

Do you think this makes me Gabriel?

After all,

I was the one who pushed you.

{I don't mind pulling you back up,

if you'd let me-}

.

{If only life was fair, my dear, because-}

I. Loved. You.

I was fucking insane because I loved you that much,

I was broken with it.

It wasn't enough, though, was it?

Not enough to stop you from doubting

that I was on the wrong side

of No Man's Land,

while you were caught in the middle,

itching to join the fight.

(Just choose a fucking side, dear.)

((You're not ambidextrous -

you can't sit on the left hand side

as well as the right.))

It wasn't enough to stop you from believing in fairytales,

thinking that you could be the hero,

that you could be the angel;

believing that you could do anything but fall.

You. Loved. Me.

You can try and deny it but darling, you loved me so much,

you were crazed with it.

For me, well - maybe it could've been enough.

Because -

Because we were childhood sweethearts,

and we dreamt of stupid things,

like Valentine's and picket fences,

and all those fucking things

we'd never, ever have.

(We wore our shells with pride, didn't we?)

((It wasn't enough, dear -

we were always going to be torn to pieces

and our wings weren't strong enough

to keep us in the air.))

We were the couple who actually believed in fairytales -

Cinderella

and Rumplestiltskin and Beauty and the Beast.

Not Little Red Riding Hood,

right, Remus?

{I don't mind being your prince-}

.

{If I could just hold you one more time-}

I think I'd tell you, tonight;

tell you that I love you so much that I hate you.

(I hate you so much I love you.)

After all,

I kind of wished I could have kissed you

when you opened the Marauder's map for the first time,

whispering, "I solemnly swear

that I am up to no good,"

into the parchment like a promise.

I kind of wished I could have held you

when I left that house for the last time,

screaming down cities

and tearing down every bridge I'd ever built.

I kind of wished I could have fucked you

when you smiled at me,

when we looked down from the Astronomy Tower

on our last night

and said you kind of felt like jumping.

I kind of wished I could have made love to you

when you stole my cigarettes and sat on my porch and said,

"Either you let me live with you,

or I'm crashing in your shed."

It was all just wishful thinking, wasn't it, love?

{I kind of wished

I could have said I loved you before-}

.

{It's about time to be honest-}

But the thing is,

I love you.

I love you and your over-romanticised fairytales;

you and your bullet wounds and empty shells.

And I may be a little bit in love

with the way your shoulder blades

move in time

with the wings on your back.

And it may be wishful thinking,

but I kind of wish

that I could spend the rest of my life with you.

I don't mind that you're

ambidextrous

because playing for both teams has never faltered me -

did you see?

I'm the same fucking boy who

pushed you over the barbed wire fence,

and I'm the same man you dragged you back.

And you may be a little bit broken,

but love,

(even if I don't believe in fairytales)

I think I'm a little bit crazed.

We're just fucking children,

but you know what? I think I want that happy ending

(the one that's not found

in a bottle)

and I kind of maybe think that

I believe in you.

{So I was just wondering if you could love me-}

{-because-}

{-sometimes heaven needs angels-}

{-and sometimes-}

{-men do too-}